nutcracking and yellowing. because if you're not whitening, you're yellowing. crest whitestrips remove over 10 years of stains, just in time for a white holiday. crest 3d white whitestrips. on capitol hill. the big question, will there be a vote on the deal reached in the senate in the wee hours of the new year? if so, can speaker boehner come up with the votes to pass it? if not, what move might the speaker make knowing that time is running out? good morning. i'm mara schiavocampo on this first day of 2013. we've got a deal in the senate and now it's to the house. the republican conference will meet at 1:00 p.m. to strategize their way forward. the democrats in the house will meet at noon to figure out their move. nbc's luke russert joins us now live from capitol hill. he's following it all. luke, we understand that you've confirmed that a very special guest will be present when the democrats meet, when the house

democrats meet. who is it going to be? >> that's right. for the first democratic caucus meeting of 2013 they'll hear from none other than vice president joe biden who will come here to capitol hill to brief them about the deal similar to what he did last night for his senate democratic faithful. he was really influential in helping get a lot of democrats to vote for the bill. it is expected he'll do the same thing today when he talks to his house democratic friends. now, there should be no surprise. nancy pelosi when the white house asked her to get votes she is very good at it. she got votes for the budget control act, for health care. there should be no reason she shouldn't be able to get the votes today. with vice president biden coming to capitol hill it rests the nerves of any anxious democrats who don't like the deal because they don't like the $400,000 threshold and would prefer 250 and also feel the president was losing some negotiating leverage. biden being here, pelosi onboard it should be okay on the house democratic side. >> you are often privy to juicy

little nuggets of behind-the-scenes information. do you have any thoughts on how vice president biden became so key to all of this? >> well, i think there is a basic trust factor that mitch mcconnell has with joe biden. they served together for over 20 years. they know each other. from a lot of conversations i had especially with the older bulls i sort of call them, they say joe biden is a guy you can do business with. that the president doesn't understand how to negotiate room to room, you know, person to person, that joe biden gets that. he gets the personality of it. and it's a relationship built up over years. so if anything, joe biden brings that sort of old school mentality to capitol hill and for all the children's we see in our country and for all of the sort of new faces that are coming in here, politically in the house and the senate, it still is very much run by folks in their 70s, the sort of old bulls who have been here a while and seen a lot. >> as we mentioned the republicans are meeting at 1:00 p.m. and you being the great colleague you are you put together a little cheat sheet for me.

in this you have underlined and highlighted that speaker boehner's briefing of the republican conference is the most important meeting of the entire fiscal cliff saga. why and what can we expect to happen? >> it's the most important meeting, mara, because there is a chance, not saying it's a great chance, but a very -- it is very alive if you will that this bill could be struck down. the house republican conference is not totally sold on it. why? some conservative outside groups are against it. a lot of folks in the house republican caucus come from republican districts and are always worried about a primary challenger. speaker boehner, eric cantor have not been overly supportive so far. they reserve the right to amend it. there are three options. we could all hold hands and jump off into the deep end together. that would be the house republican conference approving of this bill, at least enough of them joining the democrats to move it forward. you could also see house republicans try to amend it. that's what tom cole is talking about on your air. he doesn't think that would

happen and doesn't want that to happen but it certainly is a possibility if some conservative house republicans say we don't like this part of the deal let's send it back over to the senate. that puts us in sort of a chaos with so little time. today is a free day. the markets close. what happens tomorrow if there is still not a fiscal deal in place? lastly if there is an all out rejection all bets are off, we're jumping over the fiscal cliff. it is up to john boehner to gauge how his conference is going to react to this bill and from folks i've talked to there is a little bit of nervousness among house republican leaders. they have been left at altar many times by their conservative flank. real quickly back last year in 2011 the senate passed the payroll tax cut extension 89-11. very similar to what we saw the vote was earlier this morning. that was then defeated in the house of representatives a few days later. not saying we can see history repeat itself, but it has happened before, mara. >> all right. nbc's luke russert, thank you and happy new year, my friend. >> take care. be well. >> all right. house and senate leaders are using every last second to try to sell their membership on this

deal, something even president obama commented upon himself on monday. >> one thing we can count on with respect to this congress is that if there is even one second left before you have to do what you're supposed to do, they will use that last second. >> and joining us now from capitol hill, democratic congresswoman debby wassermann schultz of florida who also serves as the dnc chair. thank you for joining me. >> thank you, mara. great to be with you. happy new year. >> in about an hour your conference meets on this bill. in attendance will be vice president joe biden. is it going to be difficult to sell your party on this deal? >> well, i think that we're going to come together in about an hour as a democratic caucus and hear the vice president out. there are a lot of good things in this bill that make sense and that i think it will ultimately earn the overwhelming majority of house democratic votes. we made sure that as we committed throughout this last campaign that we would not allow taxes to increase on 98% of americans that's in this deal.

we made sure that we pushed off a really significant slashing of defense spending as well as domestic spending and we'll make sure going forward that whatever deal we do reach on those spending cuts is balanced when it comes to both revenue and spending cuts. and that's the overall -- overriding commitment here is we have a balanced plan in front of us and we'll need to -- any further deals made in the future continue to have a balanced plan. >> there are some in your party who don't like this plan. senator tom harken called it a very bad deal. did the president and the vice president get the best deal they could? >> i think in order to make sure that 98% of americans didn't see their tax rates go up, yes. absolutely. we wanted to make sure the wealthiest americans, wealthiest 2% of americans paid a little bit more. we wanted to avoid tax increases on the middle class. we wanted to make sure we preserved medicare and social security and we wanted to make sure that we avoided deep spending cuts and when we deal with those spending cuts down

the road we'll continue to focus on making sure. remember a year ago we voted for over a trillion dollars in spending cuts only. any deal going forward to deal with those, avoiding the sequester, is going to need to continue to focus on that balance. that is what the american people voted for in this election. >> the house gop is scheduled to meet about this bill at 1:00 p.m. do you think the majority of republicans will pass this plan? >> well, hard to say what the house republicans will do particularly with some of their more extreme tea party members is a challenge i won't take on. but i can tell you that house democrats are ready to make sure that we avoid those tax increases on the middle class. that we ensure the wealthiest americans pay a little bit more. that we ensure that we protect social security and medicare and senior citizens and that whatever we do going forward is balanced so that the middle class doesn't bear the burden of any of these decisions in the future. >> now, the fight over spending

cuts now happens in two months. does that mean we're basically going to be doing this all over again in just a short time? >> well, it means we have more work to do. and i think that's okay. we want to make -- anything worth doing is worth doing thoroughly and with a lot of thought. and so we want to make sure that whatever we do related to the sequester and the domestic and defense spending cuts is not done in haste and, again, that the decision we ultimately make doesn't balance all the pain on the backs of the middle class. that's what we avoided here today and what we'll continue to focus on in the future. >> are they willing to give anything on entitlements? >> the president has proposed more than $360 billion in entitlement savings in his $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. we need to reduce the deficit. we know we need to reduce spending. any deal in the future that is the rest of this deal and brings it to completion is going to need to have both revenue and spending cuts and we're going to need to make sure that we add entitlement savings. we have that opportunity. the republicans just need to

continue to get more of their members to agree to say yes. >> all right. congresswoman debby wassermann schultz, thanks so much for your time. >> thank you, mara. >> so who won, who lost? who compromised and who held firm? where does this leave embattled house speaker john boehner? reed wilson is editor-in-chief for national journal's hotline. thank you both for being here today. ryan, let's talk about what we'll see in the house. do you expect a full scale revolt from conservative members who vowed to vote against any tax increase? >> well, i don't know. we'll find out early this afternoon. what i'm hearing is that the conservative members have three major problems with the bill that came over from the senate. one is that there are no spending cuts included. two is that they don't believe that the offsets for the sequester are legitimate. they think this i.r.a. to roth i.r. as is bogus and three they

don't think the extension of emergency unemployment is unpaid for. so they're going to be pushing to amend it one way or another. they'll be pushing to add spending cuts to it or maybe some type of pay for unemployment or redoing the way the sequester is paid for. if they do that, and if they do it in a kind of poison pill way and send it back to the senate, the senate could reject it. if they tried to put, say, cuts to social security through chain cpi as the spending cuts that would blow the whole thing up. now, maybe there's some type of spending cuts or tax cuts that they could work into this that wouldn't kill it in the senate. but either way, you're introducing a ton of uncertainty and congress just wants to get this thing done with right now. so i think more likely is that they find some retiring and some safe members who vote with democrats and they move it through. >> now, reed, speaker boehner seems to be between a rock and a hard place to pass this bill. he probably has to work around

part of the tea party faction and the party to try to form a coalition of democrats and moderate republicans. couldn't he lose his speakership by doing that? >> he is not going to lose his speakership this term by doing it. the vote comes up on january 3rd, which is a thursday. he'll be re-elected to speaker. but what ryan got to was this really interesting sort of tug and pull on -- within the republican conference right now. there is this effort to be as conservative as possible on every single possible vote. and even the guys who are going to vote for the compromise package and try to get a deal done when the vote comes up today, if they have opportunities to vote on amendments that make things more conservative, they're going to take that opportunity, which means that this thing, there is a real risk of this bill being kicked back into the senate and us having to go through this whole thing once again. so that is sort of tug and pull between the conservative faction here not only in the house of representatives but also in sort of the interest group community that spends so much money and pays so much attention to

republican primaries is pulling a lot of members, even those who would work toward the compromise a little toward the right especially in this amendment process. >> right. and gaming this out just a little further let's say if the republicans did amend it and they put in something, even some mild spending cuts, you know, democrats are already pretty uncomfortable with this deal. you put in anything else and you could tip it so that all of the democrats decide, you know what? we're not playing these republican games and we're going to vote against it en masse like we were going to with plan b. then boehner's left trying to pass it with only his own conference and there are a good 50 or so tea partiers who aren't going to vote for it period. and so then he is stuck again. that makes amending this in any way no matter how much they might want to, how clever they might want to get, makes it extremely risky to try. >> very tricky calculations here. reed wilson and ryan grim thank you both. we'll check back in with you a little later this hour. >> happy new year. >> you too. coming up a new year means

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we are of course keeping a close eye on developments this hour on capitol hill. in less than an hour the house officially will clock in and take up the senate fiscal cliff vote for last night. here's what we know will happen after that. nancy pelosi will brief her democratic caucus at noon as well joined by a very special guest, vice president joe biden. at 1:00 p.m. eastern speaker john boehner briefs his caucus in what our own luke russert calls the most important meeting of the day. after that we should get a sense of when a vote would take place and whether the speaker will allow any amendments. we'll keep bringing you the latest information on that fiscal cliff deal. and of course every new year brings a series of new and sometimes kind of strange new

laws. 2013 is no exception. here are just a couple. in illinois motorcyclists will not be able to proceed through a red light if it fails to change. even if it's broken they just have to stay there forever. in kentucky it will no longer be legal to release feril or wild hogs into the wild. in florida, swamp buggies will now legally be considered motor vehicles. all in all over 400 new laws are on the books today across the country. coming up, armed guards in school. the president said he doesn't think it's the right idea. we talked to one new jersey mayor who disagrees and is already doing something about that. stay with us. time for your entrepreneur of the week. maya and michael are keeping an eye on inventory always ready for customers who order seed bombs from their company visual lingual. strong relationships with suppliers and knowing clients'

habits help them maintain a balanced inventory. for more watch your business sunday mornings at 7:30 on msnbc. i have a cold, and i took nyquil,

but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth! one idea to protect children from mass shootings calls for more armed security in schools. it is an idea that has drawn favor from republicans and some democrats but one that president obama was reluctant to embrace during his interview with nbc's

david gregory on "meet the press" sunday. >> we have an armed guard. like at every school in the country, that is what the nra believes could work. >> i am not going to prejudge the recommendations given to me. i am skeptical the only answer is putting more guns in schools. >> joining us now the mayor and chief zek stiff of marlboro township in new jersey and has decided to place armed guards at his schools when they return from vacation this week. thanks for joining us. happy new year. >> so you are a democrat but you do support the idea of having more security in schools. why and what have you decided to do in your township? >> as mayor of my town i'm in charge of security. and i don't make federal policy. i don't make state policy. i'm not making a statement on the nra. we need to keep our 8,000 school children safe. with the unfortunate events that happened in newtown, connecticut the only way we could take immediate steps is put a police officer, a trained professional

in our schools until we could realize what other security measures we could take in order to keep our children safe. >> the governor of your state disagrees with you. chris christie said a week ago, quote, you don't want to make this an armed camp for kids. how would you respond to that? >> i disagree with the governor. i think that our police officers are well trained. they're the ones we call when there is an emergency. we hope they get there quickly. until such time as we can change our security protocol and address the issues that happened in newtown, connecticut, this is the most immediate step and actions we can take, that i can take that our board of education could take. i haven't heard a suggestion out of the governor's office or any other of the elected officials who are saying they're uncomfortable. these aren't armed guards. these are professionals. police officers. the ones we call when there is an emergency. and if they're there to calm and possibly deter a future event. so i hope our 8,000 students in marlboro will feel safe with having him present. >> but there are some who point out there were armed guards at columbine and that didn't stop

the tragedy there. >> i understand that and it's unfortunate. however, when there is an emergency event you want your professionals on the spot. each of our police officers are trained as emergency response technicians and they are the ones you want on the scene when there is an emergency. this is -- you can't sit back and take no action. after what happened in newtown. if you are an elected official in this country and your position right now is to hope that event doesn't happen in your town i believe that's a mistake and that is not what we're prepared to do in marlboro township. >> vice president joe biden has been tasked with heading up the administration's efforts on any kind of gun control reform. what would you tell him needs to happen? what would you say to him? >> i think we need to ban assault weapons. i think we have to lower the magazine clips, multi capacity magazine clips. i believe there are tighter restrictions and licensing requirements, get rid of the gun gear loop holes. i'm not here to be in the presidential debate. i am here to keep marlboro school children safe. what newtown has shown us, that

existing security protocol was not safe. it was not adequate. so we need to go to the next step. and we're going to put our police officers in the school until such time as we get a report out of newtown we take a look at how we can improve security, all of the guys are keeping our students safe. >> what effect do you think that might have on the children and on the school environment having armed guards present at facing these threats in a very tangible way and having to see an armed guard in their school? >> we've had school resource officers in marlboro township for years. the program has gotten cut back with the economy and the fiscal concerns. but our police officers are integrated into our community. i believe that marlboro school children see police officers and look at them as somebody to protect, somebody safe. somebody to go to. and i don't think it's going to cause any fear. it's going to be a comforting, it's going to be safety. it's going to make them feel better and could act as a deterrent. >> thank you so much for joining us. happy new year. >> happy new year to you. >> thank you.

coming up with a half hour to go until the house returns we head back to washington to dig in on the fiscal cliff. >> happy new year. [ male announcer ] there are only so many foods

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forces full control by the end of 2014. and it's a very different and very quiet scene this morning in times square on the first day of 2013. last night was a little different. about a million people welcomed in the new year with the famous ball drop in new york city. the house is set to reconvene in about half an hour to begin expected consideration of the fiscal cliff deal passed by the senate. before any vote republican and democratic leaders will hold separate conference meetings with their members to gauge whether indeed it can pass. joining us now is nbc news deputy political editor dominico montenaro. what are leaders telling their members in these caucuses and what do you make of the news vice president joe biden will attend the democrats' closed door meeting? >> i think vice president biden like he did last night is going to have to make the sale one more time to his fellow democrats to say, look. this is the best we can get.

this is what we worked out. let's get it done before the markets open to make sure we give some certainty. >> and what's going to be the hardest sell for both parties? >> i think there are a few things that are going to be tough sells. i think that democrats don't want to feel like president obama caved on the tax rates. he campaigned pretty strongly on the $250,000 threshold. now that is moving to $400,000, $450,000 for couples. i think that democrats are thinking we could have gone over and just a couple days republicans would have had to come back and probably would have -- democrats would have had more leverage. that said i think that vice president biden will argue that, you know, this was reasonable and you want to give certainty again to those markets and be able to look reasonable in this process. i think for republicans there are going to be a couple things. first they don't want taxes to go up on anybody and this essentially makes them look like they're voting for a tax increase although they actually would be voting for a tax cut

but it is amazing the way it's been framed by both conservative groups and the white house, interestingly. i do think that there are a few things in there in the details if you think about the estate tax change, the changes to dividends and capital gains, and the fact that mostly it avoids spending cuts and pushes this down to just another couple months and there are no entitlement reforms in there. i think those will be tough sells for republicans but whether or not john boehner is going to allow this to come to the floor with such an overwhelming vote in the senate is the real question. >> all right. thanks so much. >> thanks, mara. and joining me live now democratic congressman adam schiff of california. a member of the house appropriations and intelligence committees. happy new year and thank you for being here. >> happy new year to you. >> house republican leader eric canter says no decision has been made on whether the house will vote on the measure that passed the senate earlier this morning. do you expect a vote today? >> i do expect a vote today though it is still very much in question what we'll have to vote on, whether it is exactly what

the senate passed or the house will take up amendments to it. i would strongly caution the house republicans that if they do amend this, if they monkey around with what the senate agreed to on a very strongly bipartisan basis, they'll need to put up the votes to pass it. i'm not sure they can do it. it may die in the senate if they do it and if they do that they will own this and own the real going over the cliff. so it's a pretty precarious balance already. i would encourage them to take up what the senate passed. it has plenty to like and plenty not to like about it. a lot of it gives me indigestion. but my primary concern is that we not go back into another recession. i think this does have the merit of avoiding the potential of a double dip recession. >> you say a lot of it gives you indigestion. what don't you like about this? >> well, i think that it protects the middle class which i like. on the other hand it doesn't raise enough revenue to deal with the deficit and debt so we'll need to raise more revenue. it also puts off the spending decisions for another only two months so we'll have another big

brawl over the debt ceiling and over spending cuts in a couple months so we haven't really resolved the big picture items. so those are a couple of the concerns that i have. i think the estate tax is more generous than we can afford. but i do think it is a compromise and i knew there were going to be parts of it i wouldn't like. the thing i would like the least is if we fail to come to agreement and we risk putting the country into another recession. that would be devastating to the middle class, to working families, to the whole country. that has to be avoided. at this point, my biggest concern is that the house of representatives gets cute and they try to either put poison pills in it or try to amend it to get a few more of their members to vote for it and that may simply sink the deal. >> now, you and your house democratic colleagues are scheduled to meet in about a half hour and house republicans are scheduled to meet at 1:00 p.m. so what do you think? can the senate bill pass the house as it stands? >> i think it can. given the strong vote that it had in the senate, it's hard to imagine it failing in the house. you know, anything is possible.

it's certainly possible that the house gop votes en masse against it but i think some of the gop members will support it. and there are many in our caucus on the democratic side who won't like the provisions that i mentioned, so i think the vice president will come in. he will do what he does well, which is he will make a pitch for why our caucus should get behind it and i think he'll be largely successful. so i think probably the best case scenario for the country is that the gop takes the measure up as it passed in the strongly bipartisan fashion in the senate, that the vice president makes a successful pitch to our caucus, and that we move forward. but i do hope and this is critical that we don't simply go back to this kind of quagmire of indecision two months from now and fight over the debt ceiling and the president is absolutely right to say he won't play that game. i think the business community needs to weigh in with our speaker and tell him that we can't play russian roulette with the full faith and credit of the country. it would be too destructive of

our economy. >> as you know, this went into the wee hours of the morning. the senate was voting at 2:00 in the morning. so now you're there at work on new year's day. how does it feel being part of the house's first new year's day session in decades since 1951? >> well, i went to see lincoln last night with a couple colleagues and we went to see the emancipation proclamation that just turned 150 so it wasn't the new year's that i would have chosen but it turned out okay. >> hopefully you got a glass of champagne in there too. thank you very much for joining me. >> thank you. so can house leaders sell their membership on the senate's fiscal cliff deal or will factions inside either party derail it such as the tea party members did to boehner's plan b? well, even the man who helped craft the current deal says it's impossible to tell how a senator house vote is going to go. >> there's two things you shouldn't do. you shouldn't predict how the senate is going to vote before they vote. you won't make a lot of money. and, number two, you surely

shouldn't predict how the house is going to go. >> joining us now are our strats david goodfriend the democratic strategist and robert trainum a former bush/cheney senior adviser and msnbc contributor. welcome to both of you. >> happy new year. >> as the vice president indicated no deal is final. does the gop's tea party faction have the strength to scuttle this deal? >> i think they have the strength to make a lot of noise about it but quite frankly as the congressman mentioned a few moments ago with such a strong bipartisan support out of the senate, almost 90 votes, and with such a large majority of the democratic caucus on the house side most likely will be voting for this and obviously be some folks on the republican side i don't see this bill not passing. i do think it will pass later today or perhaps maybe tomorrow. >> and, david, what about democrats? not everyone is happy that the income tax level starts in the $400,000 range. is that why biden is going to be in that room later today to talk to democrats? >> yeah. there is some discord among democrats certainly. you mentioned one of the issues.

a lot of democrats wanted to see the threshold for higher taxes start at $250,000 for a family. however, there is a lot in there to mollify the base. for example, for incomes $250,000 and above for individuals, $300,000 for families there is a cap as mitt romney talked about and that is a way of raising revenue from the top 2%. more over there is the preservation of a lot of important things to democrats, tax credits for lower income, middle income families, tax credits for investment, bonus depreciation provision and renewable energy. so there are things in there that i think the vice president will use to try to convince democrats that it's a good deal for everybody including them. >> can i respond to that? >> absolutely. >> david brings up a very good point. this is a very big bill. i obviously just looked at the top line stuff. what leader mcconnell and vice president biden did was borderline brilliant where there is a little bit in here for

everybody, both conservatives but also progressives where they can go back to the constituency specifically the house and say i voted for this and here is why. there is farm stuff in there, really some good stuff folks can give them comfort and say this is a good thing for our constituency. >> and, you know, we've heard a lot of people this morning refer to vice president biden as the closer. he certainly comes out looking very good in this. assuming that this does pass, robert, does anyone other than the vice president come out looking like a winner? conversely, who ends up losing? a lot of people are worried about how john boehner is faring. >> when you take a look at this and peel the onion back and look at the different layers mitch mcconnell and joe biden clearly have a friendship. they have a relationship there. joe biden served in the senate with mitch mcconnell for almost 20 plus years. this is really how deals get done, in a truly bipartisan fashion. quite frankly, a true deal is when both progressives and conservatives are upset because they both had to give up something here. i think the downside here shall the thumbs down most likely would unfortunately be speaker boehner and leader reed where

maybe even the president to a certain degree simply because they weren't able to close the deal like vice president biden did and senator mcconnell did. >> and, david, we saw senators rand paul and marco rubio vote against the bill. do you think they're positioning themselves for 2016? >> well, they represent the far right wing of the republican party today which increasingly seems to be out of step with main stream americans. look. the polling in this instance shows a vast overwhelming majority of americans want to see a deal done, they want to see compromises made. and even if these two gentlemen are positioning themselves for a run at 2016, i think it should send a cautionary note to the republican party in general. it's time for that party to retool for a different kind of election. and hopefully, i would like to see a robust, successful republican party because that would bring things more to the middle. right now if republican leadership is pushing ever more to the right, all they're going to do is alienate themselves from the larger national debate

and that leads to extremism and that is not good. >> all right. davi david,, robert, thanks for your insight. another major story we're following secretary of state clinton is still hospitalized in new york for treatment of a blood clot in her head. the clot is located behind her right ear in a blood vessel that drains blood from the brain but significantly it is not in the brain itself. joining me live now dr. alvin schmeyer who specializes in the treatment of such things at case hospital in cleveland. welcome. >> happy new year. >> you too. doctors are using blood thinners to dissolve the clot and are confident the secretary of state will make a full recovery. are blood thinners the usual course of treatment for something like this? >> yes they are. they actually don't dissolve the clot. they just prevent it from progressing and then the natural clot mechanisms will dissolve the clot over time. >> we mentioned that clot is not

in her brain. if it were that would be a much greater threat is that correct? >> of course. >> tell me a little bit about the science there. it is located close to the area but not within it. >> so the vein, she has a vein that is draining the brain i.e. the blood that comes to the brain through the arteries comes out and is draining the brain. her clot was not very large apparently and probably came on as a result of her injury from the concussion. i imagine it was not present when they did the first mri when they diagnosed her concussion. had she had a clot of a blood vessel going to the brain, then there would have been a plug. and sort of like crimping a garden hose. you essentially stop flow to the brain. that causes instant injury to the brain. that is not the case that has happened to secretary clinton. >> and doctors say she did not suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed

after she fainted and fell at her home last month and she suffered a concussion. is that common? >> so it's, the concussion and the relationship to this clot in a vein coming from the brain is not common. it's actually quite unusual. and i think it's a testament to the perseverance of her doctors to get a followup mri that probably diagnosed it in an early stage. this is a very uncommon clot occurring in only about 8 of 100 people who get a blood clot and is not frequently recognized. so i think she's had very good care at columbia presbyterian. >> and, doctor, just a quick, final question. how closely and frequently will she have to be monitored if and when she gets out of the hospital? >> it depends on the stability or anticoagulation. initially i'm sure she'll have close monitoring. and then in time when she is stable the monitoring will be less. it also has to do with a choice of the anticoagulants used as to

the degree of monitoring she'll need. >> thank you for joining me on this new year's day. >> happy new year's to all. >> thank you. coming up even if they reach a deal this kick the can congress leaves plenty of work for the new year. a massive hear. gave birth to my daughter on may 18th, five days later, i had a massive heart attack. bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. [ woman ] learn from my story.

if the house manages to pass the senate bill on avoiding the fiscal cliff and that remains a big if it will represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the economic challenges facing the president and congress over the next several years. rick newman is chief business correspondent for u.s. news and world report and the author of "rebounders." how winners pivot back to success. welcome. thank you for joining me. >> hi, mara. >> before we get to the battles ahead who is the rebounder in the senate deal? >> well, mitch mcconnell looks pretty good. this is the guy who said his main objective prior to 2012 was getting president obama unelected. that didn't happen obviously. he just looked like an

obstructionist. now he is playing a productive role getting some things done for the nation. >> now, it looks like in this deal the senate bill punts a lot of things down the road and we could see a debt ceiling debate in the near future. >> yes. >> how can we avoid the kind of brinksmanship we've just seen in the issues we've got moving forward? >> i'm not sure we can avoid it. that is why this deal, it is going to be a relief for the markets that there is some deal that doesn't involve tax increases for most people. it puts off most of the big issues. i mean, if anything was going to happen, it was going to be that the middle class tax cuts would be extended and perhaps permanently which looks like we're seeing. that was the low hanging fruit in this, the easy part. the hard things all have been pushed off. we know we'll have a big battle over the borrowing limit being extended toward the end of february beginning of march. that was a, really a fiasco the last time we had to deal with that in the summer of 2011. you know, is there a new spirit of bipartisanship in congress right now? i'm not sure there is.

one thing we do see, it is encouraging that we saw this deal happen before the stock market tanked so there is some awareness that these decisions really affect the real world and instead of waiting for the stock market to plunge and then having to rush and get something done, they seem to have done it in anticipation of that so that it doesn't happen. that will be the same scenario when we get to the debt ceiling because that is a much more serious problem that would have immediate impact. if there is sensitivity to the markets when we come around to that it could help get a deal done. i'm not too sure that is how it is going to play out. >> you mentioned getting it done before the markets had a chance to react. they still pushed it to the 11th hour. the senate was voting at 2:00 am on new year's day. why do they wait until the very last minute to try to get these things done? >> people who have been watching these fiscal cliff negotiations for a long time basically expected it to play out pretty much the way it played out. there was not much real expectation that any grand bargain would happen because

this is still a lame duck session of congress and the fact is in these negotiations neither side has maximum leverage until it's right up to the very last second. so that's when everybody feels they have the best ability to exact the demands that will satisfy their constituents and as a result it just really is not in either side's interest to make an agreement before you get to the last second because that is when everybody feels they have the most leverage. and we're going to see the same dynamic again with these other issues, most notably the debt ceiling coming in a couple months. >> thank you very much for your perspective. happy new year. >> same to you. well the house action is about to officially begin so don't go anywhere. sometimes what we suffer from is bigger than we think ... like the flu.

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just minutes from now the house will convene with one major issue on the agenda. the fiscal cliff deal passed by the senate? will hard line conservatives make it sxwobl in back now is reid wilson and ryan grim.

thank you for coming back. >> hey. >> thanks for having us. >> do you think this bill will pass the houshgs and if not will democrats preferred to make further concessions? >> i think it will pass the house eventually. this is one of those moments, though, when i think speed is probably on the side of -- or, rather, it would benefit those who want to pass this bill. the faster you're able to get something to the floor and get it through a vote, the more likely you are to attract these conservatives and liberals, by the way, who might otherwise find a reason to vote against it. if the longer they take their time to sort of talk it through and go through the bill's details moment by moment, the more you'll get pressure from the outside and pressure from groups like everybody from the progressive campaign committee on the left to the heritage action and for growth on the right. the outside influences will only mount. if the house leaders have any ability to get this to the floor quickly, that would behoov the bill's chances.

>> ryan, what kind of a box do you think this puts house speaker john boehner into? does he have the votes, and is he willing to risk his speakership to get a deal done? >> i think his speakership is safe because there are enough senate republicans that supported this bill that it's not as if john boehner is going it alone and kind of taking his party off some liberal cliff, so -- and the fact that eric cantor and paul ryan are all involved with it with the whipping here and everybody is pushing together, it makes it so there isn't anybody else they could really turn to, so i think he is safe. i think the question isn't actually whether this will pass the house. it's when. the house republicans revolted on the payroll tax holiday about a year ago after the senate had done something very similar, something like 90-91. a couple of days later after the market reacted, they came become and they caved.

even if they do manage to spike this, it will be merely symbolic and they'll come back and they'll pass it again because i don't see harry reid accepting any type of amended version of this. i think this is a take it or leave it offer to the house, and if they vote to leave it today, they're going to he wanted up voting to take it tomorrow or the day after. >> and, reid, you're take on that? if we don't get a bill out of the house the president has promised wait until the new congress is sworn in on january 4th and start the process all over again, so do you think the odds of a deal go up or down with the new congress? >> well, i think we're going to get the deal before the new congress comes in, but i think in the end of the day the odds probably increase given democratic gains in the last election. one of the interesting things, though, is this sort of discussion of the market's reaction and whether or not a big drop in the market like what happened after the tarp bill failed might spur people to action. we haven't really seen the market reacting that much. sure, it was down five days in a row last week to the week between christmas and new

year's, but it was up significantly yesterday, and who knows if we get a deal, it might go up if this bill looks like it's going to pass, it will go up a little bit. that tells me there's this sort of new york-d.c. disconnect here. one side sees a deal that can be completed, and that's not how politics works anymore. if a deal doesn't go through by tomorrow morning, i'm not so pessimistic that we're going to see some type of steep drop. if the deal fails, though, then i think we're back to that moment in september, october of 2008 when the dow dropped 777 points in a single day. >> all right. reid wilson, ryan grim, thank you both. we're just moments away from the house beginning their debate on this. well, thank you so much for watching. keep it right here on msnbc as the house officially gets back to work and, of course, happy new year to all. coverage continues on the fiscal cliff vote here on msnbc, the place for politics.